Kalidasa is the author of Sakuntala, Vikramorvasi and Malavikagnimitra.
He has been designated the Indian Shakespeare. He is reputed to have
been one of the nine ornaments (or "gems") of the Court of Vikramaditya,
king of Ujayin, whose Era, called _Samvat_, begins in 56 B.C. Stories
extant about him describe him to be the veriest fool. He rose to be a
great poet through the favour of the Goddess of Learning. Those stories
embody the public opinion that except through Divine Grace or the
Inspiration of the Muse a man cannot rise to such eminence by learning
and culture alone. His native place is Kashmir or its neighbourhood. He
had no doubt suffered from the pangs of poverty and neglect and
travelled a great deal. He professed the _Saiva_ form of worship.
His chief poems are the Raghuvansam, the Kumarasambhavam, the Meghadutam
and the Ritusanharam. It is believed that he wrote a treatise on
Astronomy and one on Sanskrit Prosody. His genius was of a versatile
nature. He was a poet, a dramatist and an astronomer. His works bespeak
the superior order of his scholarship--his acquaintance with the
important systems of philosophy, the Upanishads and the Puranas;--his
close observation of society and its intricate problems;--his delicate
appreciation of the most refined feelings, his familiarity with the
conflicting sentiments and emotions of the human heart,--and his keen
perception of and deep sympathy with the beauties of Nature. His
imagination was of a very high order and of a constructive nature. His
power of depicting all shades of character,--high and low,--from the
king to the common fisherman, is astonishing. His similes are so very
apt that they touch directly the heart and at once enlist the sympathy
of the reader. He is called the poet of the sentiment of Love as this
sentiment was his _forte_. His diction is chaste and free from
extravagance and is marked by that felicity of expression, spontaneity
and melody which have earned for him the epithet--"the favoured child of
the Muse."